Tonks at the Face Painting Booth
by DannigirlSOS
Summary: This is a scene from a role-play once done on Finite Incantatem. After a death-eater attack, the ministry of magic decides to throw a carnival to boos spirits. Tonks tries to find solace in the children waiting in line at the face painting booth.


Tonks trotted idly along the streets of the faire. This festival was an absolutely amazing idea to raise morral after the attack. Plus, both St Mungo's and the Ministry of Magic would need the help for all the repairs of buildings and bodies. She smirked, knowing that the Auror department wouldn't be the only ones with extra paperwork after the weekend. She donned her new midnight blue and stars embroidery robes with pride, glad she had a reason to break them in. Madame Malkin had done a lovely job, and she even wore her hair a more blue-er shade of purple tied up neatly in a bun to compliment the elegance. Eventually, she decided it was time to cause some mischief by providing some of her own style of color to the face painting booth. Especially since she'd caught word that there were some rather child-hating students who were assigned detention hours there.

Marching happily up to the booth, she watched all the young ones clamoring in line. Noticing a particularly rambunctious group, she squatted down to their level, supporting herself with her ankles. A grin spread in greeting as a few stopped what they were doing to look at her. "Wotcher! Whatchyu guys gonna get?"

The blank stares quickly faded into excitement as they relished in the attention. One boy spoke up quickly "I wanna spider!" Tonks held out a downward turned fist and made a black spot appear on the back of her hand, tilting her head. The boy huffed disapprovingly. "No! Like that one!" He pointed to another kid who'd started walking away from the booth with a web painted on his cheek and a black widow crawling around it from thread to thread.

"Ohhhhh..." She played along, making the black dot shift around in circles. The group looked a little more interested. She nodded towards a girl beside the boy, "Why don't you try to catch it?" She stepped closer and attempted to poke the dot which then skirted up Tonks' arm under her robe. It peeked out slightly, but slipped right back as the girl's finger came at it again. She giggled, yet had a very frustrated look on her face. Then, the dot crawled up Tonks' neck. "There it is!" someone called from the bunch, which was growing just a little. "What.. where?" Tonks feigned ignorance while looking around. The challenged girl tried swatting at it, but it started crawling around Tonks' face. Giggles came from several children as she darted her head around trying to control the dot, until it eventually made her go cross-eyed with it resting on the tip of her nose.

She clapped her hands around her nose. "Gotcha!" when she took her hands away, the dot was gone, and the kids paused for a moment, then dropped their jaws when she completely dilated one of her pupils to look as if it had crawled up into her nose and into her eye. Frightened, the girl pointed to Tonks' eye and took a step back. "Oh dear.." Tonks shook her head, but used a reassuring tone to calm everyone. She went to cough, closing her eyes and covering her mouth with the same back of her hand. The spot reappeared onto it, staying as still as it had started. She confidently wiggled an eyebrow to her audience with a smirk, and clapped her other hand overtop. When she took it away, the dot was gone completely! The children laughed and some even clapped.

Then, a cocky young boy walked up and said "That's nuthin'! Check out my dragon!" He turned and jutted out his shoulder, where a Chinese Fireball slithered around in a figure eight, pausing every few moments to look at whoever was in front of it.

"Hmmm.." Tonks dramatically scratched her chin as she looked at it, still grinning towards her little group. Some were fascinated by the new picture, others were wondering what she was going to do about it.

She got very close to the boy's arm and put a finger in the way of it's path. It stopped and glared at her. She poked it and put her face closer. It glared some more. She blocked it's path AND poked it several times. It scrunched itself up and growled, attempting to breathe fire right at her face. It obviously couldn't.. but the children didn't know that. She freed her hair from it's style and shot it straight up, waving back and forth bright colors of yellow, orange and red. She gasped in mock surprise, and the children followed suit with genuine concern. Even the boy it belonged to looked a little worried. She backed into her former place and shook her head, patting it down a few times until it returned to the deep purple bun. The kids cheered. "Better be careful with that one!" she grinned and patted the boy in the middle of his back, sending him on his way.

By now, some of the parents, wandering teens and even the kids in the middle of getting their paintings done were squirming to see. The detention serving Slytherin students working at the booth were having a rough time getting their visitors to sit still. Victory. Time to lay it on real thick!

Another little girl piped up. "A mermaid! I wanna see a mermaid!" Tonks smiled, her hair coming undone again, falling into cascading misty blue curls. She held her hands out and spread her fingers, stretching out the skin between them to make them appear webbed. She even held her head up and folded her skin to look like gills on her neck. She smiled sweetly at the girl who then hollered "yay!" and ran up to hug her and pet her hair.

Tonks was happy.


End file.
